During the preparation of the Pavilion, it was the intention of the artists and organizers that Sun & Sea (Marina) would be performed continuously throughout the opening week of the Venice Biennale, and following that, on Saturdays from 10am-6pm.

Responding to unprecedented demand in the wake of its Golden Lion win - which has seen visitors queue for up to three hours - commencing on Wednesday 19 June, full-scale live performances of the work will take place every Wednesday and Saturday, between 10am and 6pm. On other days, the artists have devised an “installation” version of the piece, which takes the form of a deserted beach soundtracked by the musical score.

The addition of a second day of live performance has been made possible by generous support from the Vilnius City Municipality with additional financial backing from the Lithuanian Council for Culture, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, and the Laurenz Foundation, Basel, as well as other individuals and foundations who supported the project through crowdfunding campaigns and additional grants. Having reached its intended target, the crowd-funding page on 'Indiegogo' has been closed.

Sun & Sea (Marina) is a durational opera-performance created by film and theatre director Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, writer and poet Vaiva Grainytė and performance artist and composer Lina Lapelytė. Selected by an international jury, Sun & Sea (Marina) beat nearly 90 other national Pavilions to win the prestigious Golden Lion award. In an official statement, the jury said it was “impressed with the inventive use of the venue to present a Brechtian opera as well as the Pavilion’s engagement with the city of Venice and its inhabitants… [it] is a critique of leisure and of our times”.

Featuring a cast of more than 20 singers who perform lying down on a brightly lit, artificial beach, and situated in the unique setting of the Marina Militare, in a military zone never before open to the public located the Biennale quarters in the Arsenale, this highly innovative take on the operatic and the performative form addresses some of the most pressing ecological issues of our time.

From a mezzanine gallery a few meters above, audiences look down on the assembled characters who appear as a typical group of holiday-goers, of varying ages, from different walks of life, attired in colourful bathing suits and sunbathing under the full glare of the sun over a mosaic of towels. As the libretto unfolds we are introduced to each individual in turn, through sung performances that reveal private preoccupations, from trivial concerns about sunburn and plans for future vacations to nagging fears of environmental catastrophe, which surface as though from the depths of the characters’ troubled consciousness. Frivolous micro-stories on this crowded beach give way to broader, more serious topics and grow into a global symphony, a universal human choir addressing planetary scale issues; tired bodies offering a metonym for a tired planet.

As part of the project, Sun & Sea (Marina) have produced a vinyl LP, designed by Åbäke, featuring the performance audio and a printed catalogue, which includes the libretto and specially commissioned texts. Working with and within Venice, the vinyl/catalogue was printed in Venice at Grafiche Veneziane and screen printed at Malefatte, a co-operative run by male inmates of the prison of Santa Maria Maggiore, Venice and supported by Nicoletta Fiorucci Russo and Danutė Mallart. While the LP has temporarily sold out, more copies are being pressed and will be available through the website in a matter of weeks.

This is Lithuania’s 11th participation at the International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Throughout this time, the Lithuanian pavilion has been honoured with four Special Mentions. 2019 marks Lithuania’s first Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale.